Barbara Goodmon, president and executive director of the A.J. Fletcher Foundation, and Bill Rowe, general counsel for the N.C. Justice Center, discussed their commitment to enhancing the lives of all citizens during a session March 2 in Whitley Auditorium. Details...
Goodmon said the Fletcher Foundation works to strengthen human services and build a coalition of support for the unempowered. Human services face a tough budget battle in the state legislature on a regular basis, Goodmon said.
“We know that when you cut the budget, you cut human services,” Goodmon said. “The people helped by human services don’t have a voice, they can’t get you elected. They’re easy to cut.”
The Fletcher Foundation has focused its efforts on providing affordable housing to North Carolina residents. About one-third of state residents do not have access to affordable housing, meaning “one-third of North Carolinians are considered to be one paycheck away from being out of a house,” Goodmon said.
The foundation chose to concentrate its efforts on affordable housing “because it affects so many things,” Goodmon said. “If you don’t have a safe place to live, how do you learn, how do you prevent substance abuse?”
Goodmon said foundations have a responsibility to use their power to change public policy.
“You can’t put things in compartments and say, well, I’m taking care of me, and that over there doesn’t matter. It does matter.”
The N.C. Justice Center helps low-income residents with civil matters, such as evictions, scams and access to public benefits. Though the center litigates on behalf of low-income citizens and lobbies the legislature on public policy issues, it also works on grassroots empowerment of people.
“Our research and our knowledge can flow to these communities, but their knowledge of their communities, their lives, can flow to us,” Rowe said. “We are all in this together to find a solution.”
Rowe said many of the problems facing North Carolina and other states, such as a dramatic rise in mortgage foreclosures in the last five years, have their roots in a changing economy.
“North Carolina is going through a significant change,” Rowe said, noting the dramatic shift from a manufacturing-based economy to one that is now built on services. For years, North Carolina’s tax system relied on the taxation of goods. “How do we change that tax system, now that we’re not making goods anymore?” Rowe said.